The transient receptor potential (TRP) channel superfamily is a non-selective Ca2+-permeable cation channels involved in sensory physiology. Here we show that 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB), a compound commonly used as TRP channel inhibitor, dose-dependently induce a significant facilitation on the frequency of spontaneous neurotransmitter release at developing Xenopus neuromuscular junction through, surprisingly, TRP channel activation. Bath application of universal TRP channel inhibitors either SKF96365, flufenamic acid or RuR cease the 2-APB-induced synaptic facilitation. Exclusion of Ca2+ from culture medium or bath application of the pharmacological Ca2+ channel inhibitor cadmium, membrane-permeable Ca2+ chelator BAPTA-AM, effectively hampered the facilitation of neurotransmitter release induced by 2-APB, suggesting Ca2+ influx is requisite for 2-APB-induced synaptic facilitation. Blockade of the voltage-dependent Ca2+ channel with either nifedipine, verapamil or £s-CTX failed to abolish the SSC facilitating effect of 2-APB. Electrophysiological recording of 2-APB induced single channel currents by using cell-attached patch-clamp technique reveals 2-APB evoked a robust single channel activity recorded at different pipette voltages. Furthermore, the 2-APB-evoked single-channel events are significantly abolished in the presence of SKF96365. Either pretreatment of the cultures with inhibitor of phospholipase C (U73122) or tyrosine kinase (Genistein) abolishes 2-APB induced potentiation of synaptic transmission. The structure of PMA is analogous to diacylglycerol (DAG), which abolishes 2-APB induced synaptic facilitation. 2-APB no longer elicited any changes in SSC frequency when serum is eliminated from culture medium. Overall, results from our current study provide evidences that 2-APB induces the opening of TRP channels and Ca2+ influx which resulting in facilitation of spontaneous neurotransmitter release at developing Xenopus neuromuscular synapse. Serum may activate tyrosine kinase to turn on PI3K and phospholipase C. Then phospholipase C cleavage PIP2 to IP3 and diacylglycerol, and diacylglycerol induced TRP channel opening. 2-APB potentiates and sensitizes the TRP channel, increasing Ca2+ inffux. Elevated [Ca2+]i resulted in enhancement of neurotransmitter release from presynaptic nerve terminal.

In an effort to dissect the mechanism of SOCe activation, I used two novel 2-APB analogs (DPB162-AE and DPB163-AE) which are ~50-100 times more potent at modifying SOCe than 2-APB. In the presence of STIM1, both compounds (2 µM) differentially affected Orai subtypes, fully blocking endogenous Orai1, but not Orai2 or Orai3 mediated SOCe in DT40 Orai-specific knockout cells. Neither analog directly activated Orai3 over-expressed alone in HEK293 cells. Analysis of constitutively active Orai1 mutant, Orai1V102C, showed an increase in Ca2+ entry after application of DPB162-AE independent of STIM1. When STIM1 was co-expressed with Orai1V102C, there was no inhibitory effect of the analog on the mutant channel complex. DPB162-AE appeared to have a long term effect on the channel complex revealed a lack of SOCe 10 minutes after washout of the analog. STIM1ct-Orai1 Ca2+ entry was moderately increased by DPB162-AE yet constitutively active Stim1ct4EA-Orai1 Ca2+ entry was robustly inhibited. The activation of mutant Orai1V102C indicated the analogs are capable of interacting with Orai1, perhaps to widen the pore, and pointing to a putative mechanism of action for inhibition. FRET analysis indicated no effect on STIM1-Orai1, STIM1ct-Orai1 or SOAR-Orai1 coupling. Thus, the inhibitory effect on STIM1-Orai may be through physical alteration of Orai1 gating. Previously reported as having biphasic effect on SOCe proteins, DPB163-AE appeared to effect its potentiation exclusively via STIM2 with no evident inhibition of STIM2 SOCe. Inhibition by both analogs was mediated by STIM1. DPB162-AE and DPB163-AE had remarkable specificity on Orai1 as opposed to other Ca2+ permeant channels. Neither compound affected Ca2+ entry through TRPC3, TRPC6, or strontium entry through Cav1.2 channels at concentrations (2 µM) that completely inhibited Orai1-mediated SOCe. In summary, DPB162-AE and DPB163-AE are highly specific inhibitors of Orai1 SOCe, with little effect on Orai2 and Orai3, and no effect on other Ca2+ channels. They do not disrupt STIM-Orai coupling but may modify functional Orai1 channel structure to effect their inhibitory action on SOCe. / Biochemistry

A DMA Controller can offload a processor tremendously. A memory copy operation can be initiated by the processor and while the processor executes others tasks the memory copy can be fulfilled by the DMA Controller. An implementation of a DMA Controller for use in LEON3 SoC:s has been made during this master thesis. Problems that occurred while designing a controller of this type concerned AMBA buses, data transfers, alignment and interrupt handling. The DMA Controller supports AMBA and is attached to an AHB master and APB slave. The DMA Controller supports burst transfers to maximize data bandwidth. The source and destination address can be arbitrarily aligned. It supports multiple channels and it has interrupt generation on transfer completion along with interrupt masking. The implemented functionality works as intended.

Aufgrund der wachsenden Ressourcen heutiger FPGAs, durch neue technologische Entwicklungen, erschließen sich immer neue Einsatzmöglichkeiten.Beispielsweise wächst der Wunsch, ein vollständiges System in einem einzigen Chip einzubringen. Die sogenannten Systems-on-Chip (kurz SoC) bestehen dabei aus einem Prozessor, einen Bussystem, Schnittstellen zu externen Speichern und anderen Peripheriegeräten. Die Firma Xilinx bietet mit ihrer Software EDK eine IP-Core Bibliothek an, mit der es möglich ist, ein komplettes SoC für einen FPGA zu synthetisieren. Die Xilinx-IP-Core-Bibliothek benutzt dabei den Soft-Prozessor MicroBlaze als μP. Die IP-Core Bibliothek von Xilinx ist nicht Open-Source und zu ihrer Benutzung werden Lizenzgebühren verlangt. In dieser Arbeit wird eine neue IP-Core Bibliothek bereitgestellt, welche Open-Source ist und damit frei einsehbar und frei verwendbar ist. Die neue IP-Core Bibliothek wird durch diese Arbeit in den Workflow des Xilinx-EDK eingebunden und ist somit komfortabel benutzbar. Als Grundlage dient die IP-Core Bibliothek der Firma Gaisler Research, auch genannt Gaisler Research Library (kurz GRLIB). Die GRLIB besitzt eine Vielzahl von IP-Cores unter denen, für jeden IP-Core der Xilinx Bibliothek, ein Ersatz gefunden werden konnte. Die GRLIB setzt als μP auf den LEON3-Prozessor. Der LEON3-Prozessor wurde nach den Spezifikationen der SPARC entworfen und ist ein höchst flexibler und konfigurierbarer Soft-Prozessor. In dieser Arbeit wurde weiterhin das SnapGear-Linux evaluiert, welches auf dem LEON3- Prozessor mit Komponenten der GRLIB ausgeführt werden kann.

"Benzo Fury" compounds and derivatives are enactogens similar to 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in various aspects. These compounds are similar in structure to MDMA and MDA, as well as, elicit similar effects such as elevated mood, euphoria and hallucinations. This similarity in effect increases the potential for abuse as MDMA has become less prevalent in some regions as the use of these new psychoactive substances (NPSs) has increased. The benzofury compounds are used as legal alternatives to MDMA because of their marketing as “not for human consumption”. With the relative ease in obtaining NPSs via the Internet, it is possible that these drugs may soon be prevalent in the United States. The project’s goal was to separate, detect, and quantitate the benzofury compounds and derivatives as well as MDA and MDMA in one method of analysis using ultra fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UFLC-MS/MS). The project also examined which method of sample preparation is more effective for these compounds. Six benzofury compounds were researched: 5-(2-aminopropyl)benzofuran) (5-APB), 6-(2-aminopropyl)benzofuran) (6-APB), 5-(2-aminopropyl)-2,3-dihydrobenzofuran (5-APDB), 6-(2-aminopropyl)-2,3-dihydrobenzofuran (6-APDB), 1-(benzofuran-5-yl)-N-methylpropan-2-amine (5-MAPB) and 1-(benzofuran-6-yl)-N-methylpropan-2-amine (6-MAPB) as well as MDMA and MDA. These drugs were analyzed in blood. A liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) method and solid phase extraction (SPE) method were examined to determine which would be better for the separation, detection and quantitation of the benzofury compounds. For the development of the overall method, accuracy, precision, calibration curve, carryover, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, analyte stability, and recovery were examined. The accuracy of the methods examined was greater than +/- 20%. For most analytes, the precision within-run and between-run did not exceed 20%, regardless of the sample preparation method used. A weighting of 1/x was applied to the calibration curve regardless of sample preparation method utilized. The carryover was less than 2% with the SPE method having less carryover (0.02% to 0.50%) than the LLE method (0.05% to 1.56%). The limit of quantitation was determined to be greater than 10 ng/mL. While this was unexpected, the limit of detection calculations determined that this was correct. Using the LLE method in combination with the UFLC-MS/MS method developed, the limit of detection was determined to be at least 9.98 ng/mL. Compared to the LLE method, the SPE limit of detection was lower and calculated to be 3.75 ng/mL. The percent recovery was examined for each of the analytes. It was determined that the SPE was capable of recovering 80% or more of the benzofury compounds and derivatives regardless of the concentration level. The LLE was not as successful in the recovering the benzofury compounds, the best recovery occurred at the 200 ng/mL level with only 65% or less recovered. Analyte stability exhibited a general decrease with variation prior to day 7 and then remains relatively stable until day 14. It was anticipated that the quantitation of the drugs might be complicated due to the similarity in structure between the isomers as well as the similarity of structure between all of the compounds. While this may still be the case, the difficult separation resulted in a re-evaluation and alterations to the UFLC-MS/MS method to correct for these issues. With the change in the UFLC-MS/MS method, further method optimization is required to achieve the appropriate accuracy and limit of quantitation. It was found that the best combination of sample preparation and detection of the benzofury compounds and derivatives is to use SPE followed by an UFLC-MS/MS method.

Store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) triggered by the depletion of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) luminal Ca2+ stores is a major Ca2+ entry pathway in non-excitable cells and is essential in physiological Ca2+ signaling and homeostasis. STIM proteins are sensors of ER luminal Ca2+, which translocate to ER-plasma membrane (PM) junctional regions to activate the family of Orai channels mediating Ca2+ entry. This study is focused on dissecting the mechanism of STIM interacting with Orai. A powerful modifier of SOCE, 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB) is utilized. First, the action of 2-APB on the mammalian Orai homologues are characterized using the DT40 STIM knockout cells. 50 ìM 2-APB directly activates Orai3 but not Orai1 or Orai2. Second, while it stimulates the STIM2-mediated constitutive Ca2+ entry through Orai, 2-APB also induces the cytosolic STIM C-terminus fragments to translocate to the PM and activate Orai1. These data reveal 50 ìM 2-APB enhances STIM-Orai coupling. Further, this enhanced binding of STIM and Orai leads to a conformational change within the STIM-Orai complex, which is possibly the underlying mechanism for the 50 ìM 2-APB inhibitory effect on SOCE. Finally, six residues (344-349) at the N-terminus of the STIM-Orai activation region (SOAR) prove to be critical for this inhibitory action. These same six amino acid region also constitutes an ancillary Orai binding site within SOAR, in addition to the main polybasic region. The deletion of this ancillary site abolishes the ability of SOAR to bind to and activate Orai1, but can be compensated for by the STIM-Orai binding enhancing effect of 50 ìM 2-APB. The majority of STIM1 is located on the ER membrane, while a small proportion of STIM1 is on the PM. Using an extracellularly applied STIM1 antibody, the PM STIM1 can be aggregated to exert an influence on the ER STIM1. Although the PM STIM1 is not obligatory for STIM1-mediated Orai activation, it nevertheless may have a functional presence in the PM. Lastly, a regulatory link between voltage-gated Ca2+ channels (Cav channels) and the STIM proteins is established. After activation by store depletion, STIM strongly suppresses the Cav1.2 channels. There is a biochemical interaction between STIM1 and the Cav1.2 pore subunit á1C. This inhibitory effect is independent of Orai1 activation. Hence, STIM1 interacts with and reciprocally controls two major Ca2+ channels. / Biochemistry

[pt] A teoria da termoporoelasticidade tem sido amplamente discutida e apresentada em diversos estudos de estabilidade de poço. O gradiente de quebra, definido como a pressão necessária para iniciar a propagação de uma fratura, é afetado fortemente pela temperatura. Em casos de perfuração, por exemplo, um esfriamento devido a circulação de fluido pode induzir perdas para formação. Este trabalho propõe investigar a influência da variação da temperatura no gradiente de quebra em cenários de alívio de pressão de anulares confinados (APB) durante a produção do poço e shut-in pós blowout. Em projetos de poços, para mitigar o efeito de APB, é utilizado o gradiente de fratura, correspondendo ao gradiente de tensão horizontal mínima ou gradiente de absorção. Porém, o gradiente de início da propagação é maior que estes e pode ser ainda potencializado pelo aumento da temperatura, o que pode levar a um subdimensionamento do poço e a uma eventual falha de integridade. Adicionalmente, é avaliado o gradiente de quebra numa situação de descontrole de poço (blowout) e a capacidade da rocha resistir ao shut-in. Para cumprir tais objetivos foram criados modelos geomecânicos 1D e realizadas simulações temo-hidráulicas de três poços. Foi desenvolvida uma planilha de cálculo em Mathcad® que incorporasse o efeito termoporoelástico na determinação do gradiente de quebra. Como resultado foram encontradas variações de até 16 por cento no valor do gradiente de quebra. Para os poços analisados essas variações imporam reduções significativas nos fatores de segurança nos dimensionamentos do poços. / [en] The theory of thermoporoelasticity has been widely discussed and presented invarious wellbore stability works. The breakdown gradient, defined as the pressurerequired to initiate fracture propagation, is strongly affected by temperature. In drillingscenarios, for example, cooling due to fluid circulation can induce losses to theformation. This work aims to investigate the influence of temperature variation on thebreakdown gradient in confined annular pressure build-up (APB) scenarios during wellproduction and containment. In well projects, to mitigate APB effects, the fracturegradient is used, corresponding to the minimum horizontal stress gradient or absorptiongradient. However, the initiation gradient is higher than these and can be furtherenhanced by temperature increase, which may lead to underdesigning of the well andeventual integrity failure. Additionally, the breakdown gradient is evaluated in ablowout situation and the rock s formation ability to withstand shut-in. To achieve theseobjectives, 1D geomechanical models were created and thermo-hydraulic simulationsof three wells were performed. A Mathcad® calculation spreadsheet was developed toincorporate the thermo-poroelastic effect in determining the breakdown gradient. As aresult, variations of up to 16 percent were found in the value of the breakdown gradient. Forthe analyzed wells, these variations imposed a significant redution in the well designsafety factors.

Le développement d’une nouvelle sonde dite « activity-based probe » pour réaliser la détection de formes actives de protéases appartenant à la famille des protéases à zinc de la matrice (MMP) a été réalisé dans ce travail, en partant d’un inhibiteur phosphinique puissant des MMP dans lequel a été introduit un groupement photoactivable de type diazérine. Ce composé se révèle un inhibiteur puissant de plusieurs MMP avec des affinités nanomolaires. Ce composé incubé avec différentes MMP est par ailleurs capables de modifier de façon covalente un grand nombre de MMP au niveau de leur site actif, avec des rendements de modification variant de plus de 50% à 11%, selon la nature des MMP. En ayant choisi comme moyen de détection la radioactivité, nous démontrons qu’avec cette nouvelle sonde qu’il est possible de détecter des formes actives de MMP avec des sensibilités de l’ordre de la femtomole dans des systèmes modèles de protéomes complexes. Appliquée à l’analyse de lavages broncho alvéolaires de souris traitées par voie pulmonaire avec des nanoparticules pour induire une réponse inflammatoire, cette nouvelle sonde permet de mettre en évidence la présence de formes actives du domaine catalytique de la MMP-12, une métalloprotéase à zinc exprimée par les macrophages, mais pas dans les animaux contrôles. En revanche l’analyse de carotides humaines de patients souffrant d’athérosclérose ne nous pas conduit avec cette sonde à la détection de formes actives de MMP. Malgré ce résultat, il est à noter que la détection de forme active de MMP dans un fluide pathologique est une première dans ce domaine. Cette sonde étant validée pour sa capacité à détecter des formes actives de MMP, elle permettra dans l’avenir de tester d’autres fluides pathologiques d’origine humaine ou bien des extraits de tissu comme des tumeurs pour lesquels les MMP pourraient être des marqueurs de ces pathologies. / A new activity-based probe able to covalently modify the active site of proteases belonging to the matrix metalloprotease family (MMPs) has been developed in this thesis project. The probe was shown to behave as potent inhibitor of several MMPs, with nanomolar Ki values. This probe was also able to modify specifically only the free active site of MMPs, with particular high yields of cross-linking varying from 50 % to 11 %, depending of the MMPs tested. Using radioactivity as means of detection, this probe was able to detect active form of MMPs with a threshold of 1 femtomole. Applied to the study of bronchoalvelolar fluids (BAL) from mice exposed to nanoparticles by a lung aspiration protocol, this probe revealed the presence of the catalytic domain of MMP-12 under its active form, but not in control animals. When used to detect active form of MMPs from extracts obtained from human arteries of patient suffering from atherosclerosis, the probe was not able to detect such MMP active forms. Despite this negative result, the detection of active form of MMP in pathological fluid like BAL has never been reported before this work. Having validated this novel MMP activity-based probe, it will be possible to use it now for detecting MMPs from other pathological fluids or tissues extracts in which MMPs can be good markers of the pathology.

In December 2017, Congress enacted the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA), which transitioned the U.S. to a quasi-territorial tax system and reduced incentives for U.S. multinational firms to invest overseas. Although prior studies find that the U.S. repatriation tax motivates firms to reinvest earnings offshore, they do not differentiate between investment outcomes attributable to tax deferral and financial reporting motives. I investigate the effect of financial reporting incentives to designate foreign earnings as indefinitely reinvested (IRFE) under APB 23 on foreign investment. Using a sample of U.S. multinational firms from 2007-2015, I decompose reported IRFE into a component based on investment and tax incentives to invest overseas (predicted IRFE), and a residual component that captures financial reporting incentives (excess IRFE). I find that excess IRFE are positively correlated with a history of benchmark-beating and CEO equity incentives. Excess IRFE, but not predicted IRFE, are significantly negatively associated with future foreign pretax ROA, especially relative to an estimated benchmark ROA. An increase in excess IRFE of one percent of assets is associated with a cumulative reduction of approximately 66 to 79 basis points in foreign pretax ROA and foreign ROA gap over the next three years. Among a set of privately owned firms, which face reduced reporting incentives, excess IRFE is not associated with future foreign profitability. Moreover, excess IRFE is associated with greater total cash holdings and foreign short-term investments than predicted IRFE. These results suggest that financial reporting incentives play a significant role in the accumulation of foreign earnings abroad and have negative profitability consequences.

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